The Cameron County Elections Office started mailing the city election ballots for military personnel today, two days before a hearing before a visiting judge where City of Brownsville District 2 incumbent Jessica Tetreau will ask that one of her opponents be removed from it.
"We have to do it today according to state law," said an elections staffer.
Tetreau filed a lawsuit through her attorney Rick Zayas to prevent Catalina Presas-Garcia from appearing on the ballot claiming she had violated state law by signing the petition forms despite the fact that she had not personally collected the signatures from the voters.
Tetreau's lawsuit does not allege that any of the signatures were fraudulent, only that by signing the statement under the list Presas-Garcia was asserting she had personally collected them.
In her lawsuit, Tetreau said Viro Cardenas had told her that a voter had told him it was William Kingsbury who had asked her for her signature, and not the candidate.
Visiting Judge Robert Pate has scheduled a 10 a.m. Friday hearing to consider Tetreau's motion to remove Presas-Garcia from the ballot.
Presas-Garcia has asked that the motion be denied siting state law that - among other things - states that a candidate cannot be removed past a certain deadline.
Specifically, it states that "“(a) An application for a place on the ballot may not be challenged for compliance with the applicable requirements as to form, content, and procedure after the day before any ballot to be voted early by mail is mailed to an address in the authority's jurisdiction for the election for which the application is made.”